One item you can't dive without?:
My sense of dive responsibility: for me and for you. (Independent source of air for any dive deeper than 60 feet.)

ArnieInstructor - Part Time

I took open water training as a birthday present for my 50th. Since then I've managed to go on just about 3,000 dives (logged). So I think diving is cool. There are two things that I really enjoy doing in my scuba activities: Teaching people to join the sport safely and diving onto real wrecks—see my favorite dive site.

Shortly after getting certified in the balmy waters of Monterey, California, I found and joined a local dive club. I made a lot of friends and learned a lot more about diving. The Aqua Tutas Dive Club has been meeting regularly since 1958, so it is a long-established dive club. I'm still a member and I still go on club dives. A few years after joining the club, I took technical dive training as my personal preparation for the trip to dive onto the USS Saratoga.

While living in Northern California I became a Divemaster and then an Assistant Instructor. Upon moving to Hawaii in 1999, I started diving for Aaron's Dive Shop. I have since become a PADI Master Instructor and through other agencies I teach technical diving through the Intermediate Trimix level.

Favorite Dive Site?:

USS Saratoga, CVS-3, Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands. I mean how cool is it to dive on the first aircraft carrier designed as an aircraft carrier from the beginning. The Sara is a Lexington-class carrier and was built in the 1920s. A nice dive at 175-ft in shark infested waters that experienced atomic explosions. How cool is that???? The only diving that comes close to that (for me) is the extensive wreck diving available in Chuuk Lagoon (Federated States of Micronesia). Real wrecks (Operation Hailstone)—I've been on every located wreck inside the lagoon.